


Thoughts like Fireflies

by Satelesque



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Boredom, Character Study, Gen, How fitting is that?, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insomnia, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satelesque/pseuds/Satelesque
Summary: It isn't often that Alastor sleeps.  Sometimes he rests, still standing, eyes open, letting his consciousness wander across the airwaves.  Rarely does he bother with anything more, but when he does, that very rarity makes it near impossible to drift off.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	Thoughts like Fireflies

Alastor didn’t often sleep. He didn’t need to. He was a demon and a powerful one at that, and it wasn’t a stretch to compensate for the wear and tear of near-constant sleep deprivation, not in the slightest. It was automatic. Unconscious. Magic came to him as easily as words, healing the damage before he could so much as notice it. Sometimes for months at a time.

There were moments when he felt tired. Times when his magic ebbed low after a fight or a particularly spectacular show, times when it was focused on healing less subliminal harms.

Those were exactly the times when Alastor couldn’t sleep, or at least wouldn’t. Tactically speaking, in the short term it’d be better to rest and recover in case anyone else decided to pick a fight. But no. Power was never Alastor’s first line of defense. That was reputation. In the long run, it’d be better to be seen out and about, strolling down the street trailing radio tunes and minor illusions like any ordinary day. Even if those illusions came less easily than normal. Even if his suit was covering up bandaged, still-healing wounds.

He’d rest later, when a couple-hour absence wouldn’t be noted. He’d find a place where he wouldn’t be disturbed and drift away, eyes open, still standing. It wasn’t quite sleep, closer perhaps to a trance. His consciousness would dance on the airwaves for a while, enjoying the sounds of his personally curated radio stations. The ones that played the music of his day and the ones that still hosted variety shows and dramas.

For a while it’d be calming to be nothing more than the audience, to listen without having to prepare his next line, but before long it’d start to chafe. Words would stream through his head—his voice piecing together replies as if he was the one on air. His hands would twitch as if to change the record to one that better suited his soundtrack.

It wasn’t true sleep, only a quick rest. There was no cessation of thought, and it was never long before Alastor snapped out of it and burst into motion again. He was a performer by nature, never meant to stay still for long. It wasn’t his fault if the world couldn’t keep up.

But then there were the times when it truly couldn’t. Moments in the middle of the night when there was nothing to do. No new shows to see and the only ones still open too blatantly pornographic to bother with. No new songs on the air, just a tired DJ cycling through tired hits. Too late to find a juice joint with decent conversation. Everybody would be either drunk or leaving, nobody in that sweet spot of just tipsy enough to entertain a chat with the Radio Demon. Too early though for violence. Too soon since his last show for the suspense to properly build.

In those times there truly was nothing better to do than sleep. It’d be worth it in the morning, he knew. He’d wake up to the light of the pentagram streaming through his window and feel more refreshed than he’d been in weeks. There’d be something new to do, something that had changed while he was out, something to enjoy. And if there wasn’t, he’d have the sudden inspiration and the rush of effervescent energy to make that something himself.

The only problem was falling asleep.

True sleep wasn’t drifting away but drifting off. It wasn’t just letting his thoughts wander while his body stayed still. It was letting them flicker out like fireflies, and after so many decades departed from his human life, he’d almost forgotten how. There were too many of them, and every time one blinked off another would take its place. And if there was one thing he remembered about fireflies, it was that crushing them only made his fingers glow instead.

Most said that routine helped, so Alastor tried it. Every time he’d read a book, turn out the lights, drink a glass of water, and pull up the covers. He’d close his eyes, trying to convince himself it was more than just an ordinary rest, and every time he’d still find himself mentally channel surfing.

He didn’t do this often enough for it to become routine, he’d think. He couldn’t stop thinking, he’d think. He could close his eyes and force himself to ignore the radio, but his ears still twitched at every noise from outside. Distant voices and music and crashes—violence that he could make himself a part of, no matter how forgettable it was. He could get up, change out of his nightclothes, and forget how strangely loose they felt on him. The same went for the blanket, a subtle weight that wouldn’t settle right no matter how he turned but that he missed whenever he shoved it off.

He was moving around too much, he knew. Too conscious of his bed and his pillow and his hair brushing against his neck. Too conscious in general. He could force himself still, eyes closed, lying motionless on his back, but that would only bring back the idle habit of flipping across radio stations. It was boring, so painfully limited and boring, to cut himself off from his broadcasts, even when he knew there was nothing on.

Sometimes it was hopeless. He’d stop trying and find something new to play with. Preferably something explosive as if the light show would help morning come faster.

Other times it’d work eventually, and he’d wake up in the morning not knowing what it was that finally got him to drift off. He never considered it for long. It was a brand new day, and he didn’t bother with sleep anywhere near often enough to waste time trying to understand it.

Sometimes he woke up knowing exactly what had done it. His last memory would be of someone pressing against his shoulder and resting an arm against his chest, a touch that would have had him summoning shadows to tear it away if he hadn’t recognized his own shadow behind it. It wouldn’t move, wouldn’t hiss or cackle in his ear, wouldn’t dig in claws or pull him close, and the touch always dragged up memories of an old, long-ago life. Not just when he’d been human, but when he’d been young and wide awake and begging to run outside to catch frogs and fireflies.

Then that arm had wrapped around him and, unwilling to move it, he’d drifted off to sleep. And even if his shadow’s was too cold and light and wispy to ever mistake for the real thing, it wasn’t long until Alastor was dreaming about fireflies in a jar and a kind voice laughing at him to let the poor things go.


End file.
